Business English: Marketing Madness

This is an easy but fun way to get students of any age up and speaking enthusiastically in front of the class. Get them in groups of three and tell them all that today they are all marketing executives. Give them each a product to invent (shoes, car, soft-drink, medicine, etc) and tell them that they have to come up with a way to market it and then present their idea to the class. They have to design an advertizement for either a billboard, television commercial or magazine. Divide the presentation into three parts: 1) Description of the product. 2) Description of the advertizing method they have used. 3) Explaination as to WHY they chose certain things in their advertizement (ie. a beautiful landscape that makes you think of the peacefull way that you feel when you drink this soothing drink). This is a good way to make everybody speak making full use of every flowery adjective they can find and also a fun exercise in creativity/marketing strategies. This activity is also a good wrap-up of or segway into a discussion on the good, the bad, and the ugly of advertizing techniques.

Andrea
Qingdao, China